It was Speke's desire to proceed northward and then to the east, for the purpose of reaching the point where the Nile was supposed to flow out from Victoria Nyanza.
His description of the accomplishment of his purpose is interesting: "Here at last I stood on the brink of the Nile; most beautiful was the scene; nothing could surpass it! It was the very perfection of the kind of effect aimed at in a highly kept park; with a magnificent stream, from six hundred to seven hundred yards wide, dotted with islets and rocks,—the former occupied by the fishermen's huts, the latter by many crocodiles basking in the sun,—flowing between fine grassy banks, with rich trees and plantations in the background, where herds of the hartbeest could be seen grazing, while the hippopotami were snorting in the water, and florikin and guinea fowl rising at our feet."
He proceeded some distance up the left bank of the Nile, keeping away from the stream. Passing through rich jungles, and gardens of plantain, he reached Isamba Falls. Here he found the river exceedingly beautiful. Deep banks covered with fine grass, beautiful acacias, and festoons of lilac-colored convolvuli stretched, along on either side of the stream.
He continued his journey up stream to Ripon Falls, through extensive village plantations recently despoiled by herds of elephants, and over rugged hills, to be rewarded by the most interesting scene he had yet found in Africa.
Speaking of the falls, he writes: "Everybody ran to see them at once, though the march had been long and fatiguing; even my sketchbook was called into play.
"Though beautiful, the scene was not exactly what I had expected; for the broad surface of the lake was shut out from view by a spur of hill, and the falls, about twelve feet deep and four hundred to five hundred feet broad, were broken by rocks.
"Still, it was a sight that attracted one to it for hours: the roar of the waters; the thousands of passenger fish, leaping at the falls with all their might; the Wasoga and Waganda fishermen coming out in boats and taking post on all the rocks, with rod and hook; hippopotami and crocodiles lying sleepily on the water; the ferry at work above the falls; and cattle driven down to drink at the margin of the lake, made in all, with the pretty nature of the country,—small hills, grassy topped, with trees in the folds and gardens on the lower slopes,—as interesting a picture as one could wish.
"I saw that Old Father Nile, without any doubt, rises in the Victoria Nyanza. As I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief."
Speke had seen fully one-half of the lake, and had gained enough information of the other half to feel assured that there was as much water on the eastern side of the lake as on the western, possibly more.
The head of the Nile, or its most remote feeder, he found to be the southern end of the lake. It gives to the Nile its surpassing length of above two thousand and three hundred miles.